Does the US Border Patrol have a nation wide radio set up? Or does it differ by area? I've heard that 163.625 is the primary frequency for operations. Is this true? How many channels do they use in a given area?

Not true on 163.6250
Maybe near border areas, but away from the border it's been heard in use by ICE and CBP Units

Best to search 162-174 at 12.5 Khz splits and yup make sure you go to 162 [below the NWS]

Post back what you find, it might take weeks, as different areas have varying amounts of traffic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sepura

Does the US Border Patrol have a nation wide radio set up? Or does it differ by area? I've heard that 163.625 is the primary frequency for operations. Is this true? How many channels do they use in a given area?

Does the US Border Patrol have a nation wide radio set up? Or does it differ by area? I've heard that 163.625 is the primary frequency for operations. Is this true? How many channels do they use in a given area?

You can see a list of SoCal fed channels here, but again, actual 'Border Patrol' activity, yes, including in Imperial County, is 99.9% encrypted P25. Lots of local smugglers were listening, back when it wasn't, and what is now 'CBP' very firmly encrypted all comms years ago.

Some investigative stuff, especially multi-agency, is still moderately often in the clear, what with 'Agency A and Agency B haven't gotten together and coded all their radios today', but the day in, day out border crossing anti-alien patrols are just plain NOT monitorable, other than by sheer luck.

There is a core group in the 163 area, and another in the 162 area (most inputs). They are most used in big city areas. These may have been the first freqs assigned to them back in the day, but they used justice pool frequencies to set up rural area repeaters to expand coverage. These are assigned on a local use basis. What may have been INS or BP in one area could have been FBI in another. Now that BP is no longer with DOJ, things are changing. New freqs with P25 are poping up, and a few old ones in the old core group are being seen with P25 here in FL. Repeaters on 163.7250 $169 heard in Gainesville, and 163.6500 $A00 plus 163.7750 $A01 are heard in Miami, are now P25 active. Mobile direct traffic on these freqs in Miami have NAC $293.

I have seen new Astro-Tac/Securenet Digitac repeater equipment installed at sites used in analog mode on the old DOJ pool freqs. This stuff is getting ready to pop P25, but I bet when that day comes they will move to new frequencies. Just a hunch.

If a pattern is developing here in FL, it would indicate that old core freqs are going P25 now, and DOJ freqs are not...at least not yet. Why not? The mobiles are P25 active on simplex. This is a great time to SEARCH!

163.6500 $A00
163.7750 #A01
NICE - seems the Wide-Area Repeater Systems [Based on New England and some other verified regions]
will use a common input and NAC and then each Rptr has it's own output and different NAC [in near sequential order]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SOFA_KING

New freqs with P25 are poping up, and a few old ones in the old core group are being seen with P25 here in FL. Repeaters on 163.7250 $169 heard in Gainesville, and 163.6500 $A00 plus 163.7750 $A01 are heard in Miami, are now P25 active. Mobile direct traffic on these freqs in Miami have NAC $293.

If a pattern is developing here in FL, it would indicate that old core freqs are going P25 now, and DOJ freqs are not...at least not yet. Why not? The mobiles are P25 active on simplex. This is a great time to SEARCH!

163.6500 $A00
163.7750 #A01
NICE - seems the Wide-Area Repeater Systems [Based on New England and some other verified regions]
will use a common input and NAC and then each Rptr has it's own output and different NAC [in near sequential order]

Yeah, I could see that. I keep listening for "200", but never hear that.

So, you knew about this 163.7250 $169? I thought I heard it as repeater, but maybe not. I made a note it was survailance.

What I don't get is why there is so much ICE activity in N FL and yet very little in my area or south until you are in S Miami. But N FL is really busy. I even see them on the highways up there.

Don't forget that altho we have ID'd different Networks within CBP
ie: C, BP and ICE

They also share. and Share well

Here in Boston the ICE network is fun. 5 Rptrs all sharing a common input. However when they stray out of the Repeater coverage into NH, ME or VT they move to Customs channels. NET25 is one that gets used often. Or they ultimately move to simplex.

So, what we might be seeing in FL is BP down south is the network, while ICE owns the Northern network ? All speculation.

Enjoy your trip and we look forward to your RESEARCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by SOFA_KING

What I don't get is why there is so much ICE activity in N FL and yet very little in my area or south until you are in S Miami. But N FL is really busy. I even see them on the highways up there.

The following information on the zone setup mainly applies to VHF aviation units which cover a much broader area than ground units, but still ground unit radios are similar in their zone setup loads.

There is a semi standard CPB load for the radios consisting of 9 standard zones and depending on the region the radios may be used in, there may be more extra added zones in a radio.

Each of these zones can have from 2 to 16 channels in them.

All of the channels labeled/designated as CBP (TAC-X channels) are using voting scan and are the same around the country, most if not all of the local CBP channels also use voting scan setup.

All of the other federal non CBP enties such as FBI, BLM, SS and the state/local channels typically do not use voting scan.

However, all of the CBP and some of the other Federal entries are using AES-256 encryption with OTAR.

In some regions the extra zones are setup for P25 Trunking systems but so far in the southwest voting scan setup is dominant while areas such as Portland OR and Northern MI are more trunking VHF setup along with the standard voting scan CBP zones.

Also in the above zone setup description, by semi standard I mean that the regular 9 zones are typically the same around the country while other zones have more or less local CBP, FBI, BLM, SS and other Federal, State and local PD frequencies in them, a mix of analog, P25 conventional and P25 trunking.

Also due to the nature of airborne Ops radios, at times you may hear an aviation unit, be it a regular CBP unit or a Ntl. Guard RAID unit that forgets to enable encryption on a P25 channel and then you'll hear one side of the xmissions in the clear.